Alandus Againstus Receptus

Kurt & Barbara Aland write concerning the Textus Receptus. Though their attitude toward it is negative, what they write yields forth fruitful information. 

It took “scholarship...a full three hundred years” to “overcome” the Textus Receptus. (The Text of the New Testament, p. 4; later they suggest 400)

“...no real progress was possible as long as the Textus Receptus remained the basic text and its authority was regarded as canonical...Every theologian of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (and not just the exegetical scholars) worked from an edition of the Greek text of the New Testament which was regarded as the ‘revealed text.’ The idea of verbal inspiration (i.e., of the literal and inerrant inspiration of the text), which the orthodoxy of both Protestant traditions maintained so vigorously, | was applied to the Textus Receptus with all of its errors, including textual modifications of an obviously secondary character (as we recognize them today).” (The Text of the New Testament, pp. 6-7)

“But this indirect criticism [such as the publishing in 1675 of a Greek NT by John Fell, rlv] of the Textus Receptus failed to produce any changes in it. Its authority only increased.” (The Text of the New Testament, p. 9)

“We can appreciate better the struggle for freedom from the dominance of the Textus Receptus when we remember that in this period it was regarded even to the last detail the inspired and infallible word of God himself.” (The Text of the New Testament, p. 11)

“How firmly the Textus Receptus was entrenched in these areas is shown by the fact that the British and Foreign Bible Society, then the largest and most influential of all the Bible societies, continued to distribute it officially for fully twenty years after the publication of Westcott and Hort’s edition. It was not until 1904 that it adopted the [Eberhard] Nestle text, when it was then in its fifth edition. This marked the final defeat of the Textus Receptus, nearly four hundred years after it was first printed.” (The Text of the New Testament, p. 19)

[All quotes from The Text of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Critical Editions and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism, Kurt Aland, Barbara Aland (translated by Erroll F. Rhodes). Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1995 (original, Der Text des Neuen Testaments, 1981)]

What look you out and see? Obviously, the Alands did/do not like the Textus Receptus. They see it as an inferior text full of errors. But what look you out and see? They put the lie to the popular assertions that support for the TR as a superior, and even infallible, text is some sort of new-fangled tenet. No, not new. It held sway for over 300 years. The opposition overcame it only at the turn of the 20th century (and originally primarily in “The Academy”). 

• The TR was regarded as the revealed text.
• The idea of verbal inspiration was applied to the TR.
• The TR was viewed as authoritative.
• The TR was regarded even in the details the inspired and infallible word of God.

You may regard the high views held about the Textus Receptus as naïve, mistaken, and misguided. What you cannot do is pretend this is something new.

William Whitaker mentions that Jerome corrected the Latin from the Greek; the Romanists are not certain “that this Vulgate Latin edition” is the same as the one Jerome corrected. Against this, Whitaker asserts that “most certainly, know that this Greek edition of the new Testament is no other than the inspired archetypical scripture of the new Testament, commended by the apostles and evangelists to the christian church.” (p. 142) “...the Greek edition...is that of the apostles and evangelists, and finally, of the Holy Ghost himself...” (p. 144) William Whitaker (1548-1595), A Disputation of Holy Scripture, Against the Papists especially Bellarmine and Stapleton.

“Let it be remembered that the vulgar copy we use was the public possession of many generations,—that upon the invention of printing it was in actual authority throughout the world with them that used and understood that language, as far as any thing appears to the contrary; let that, then, pass for the standard, which is confessedly its right and due, and we shall, God assisting, quickly see how little reason there is to pretend such varieties of readings as we are now surprised withal…” John Owen (1616-1683), The Works of John Owen, p. 366.

“Our argument runs as follows: every holy Scripture which existed at the time of Paul was theopneustos (2 Tim. 3:16) and authentic. Not the autographic (for they had perished long before), but the apographic writings existed at the time of Paul. Therefore the apographic Scripture also is theopneustos and authentic.” Johannes Andreas Quenstedt (1617-1688), quoted by R. D. Preus, The Inspiration of Scripture as Taught by the Seventeenth Century Lutheran Dogmaticians. Ph.D. Dissertation, New College, The University of Edinburgh, 1952, p. 48.

“By ‘original texts” we do not mean the very autographs from the hands of Moses, the prophets, and the apostles, which are known to be nonexistent. We mean copies [απογραφα], which have come in their name [αυτογραφα] because they record for us that Word of God in the same words into which the sacred writers committed it under the immediate inspiration of the Holy Spirit.” Francis Turretin (1623-1687), 21 Questions on The Doctrine of Scripture.